Angelique allowed her footman to hand her into her carriage. With the black lacquered door shut firmly behind her, she laid one gloved hand in the open window, savoring the feel of the evening breeze as it came up from the river. She did not offer to bring him home with her, but raised one hand in farewell as her horses began to draw her up the hill to her husband’s house. Even she was not brazen enough to take a man up to her house in her own carriage in full view of the village.
He stood looking after her. He did not turn and walk back into the inn or even call for his horse. He stayed where he was until her carriage turned the corner onto the main road leading to her home, and she lost sight of him completely. He was a man of strength, but she could not allow his strength to overwhelm her own.
Whatever he was, whatever he became to her over the next few hours, James Montgomery would not be dull.
Eighteen
Aeronwynn’s Gate
Lisette had never been fond of the country, but she settled into Angelique’s rooms without grumbling in French even once, overseeing the unpacking and calling for bathwater for her mistress after the long journey. Angelique herself did nothing but sit by the fire in her tall, wing-backed chair, leaning against her cushions as her household put her affairs in order.
She would take her time in her rooms and prepare herself for her meeting with Captain Montgomery. She pushed all thoughts of Sara aside, to be dealt with on the morrow. Though the girl’s piquant face was not far from her thoughts, she needed to deal with the question of whether she would take James Montgomery into her bed. Sara would have to wait.
She had never known a man to follow her two days into the countryside. She had left the naval captain wanting her and might have seen him again in London, if he had not gone back to the sea. The fact that he had followed her here was a little intimidating. Aeronwynn’s Gate was sacrosanct, her citadel, the one place on Earth where she could be fully herself. She was not sure how James Montgomery, as intriguing as he was, as infuriating as he could be, fit into that world, if at all.
Though the evening breeze carried a slight chill, the windows to her bedroom suite were open to allow the fresh air into her rooms. Her maid set up a screen between the window and the hip bath and made certain that the tub was drawn close to the fire. Lisette did grumble then about ladies who had no more sense than a feather, bathing themselves too often in the chill of the evening, but since she grumbled in English, Angelique pretended not to hear.
Her husband’s house had been a ramshackle mausoleum before Angelique inherited it. The carpets had rotted on the floors and the roof had leaked into the attics so that the damp had seeped into the rest of the house. Smythe had told her to abandon the property and to build anew, but when Angelique toured the place, she fell in love.
The eighteenth-century walls and elaborate molded ceilings held a beauty and an elegance that even the falling plaster could not hide. She had spent three fortunes rebuilding the old ruin, and now it was a showplace where no one but the local gentry came, and only then at the holidays the years when Angelique was at home. She had never invited a member of the ton under her country roof. Aeronwynn’s Gate was her refuge from that world, from the life she had built for herself in London. Even Anthony had never come to that place. She had always been at his beck and call, always going to his home in London or visiting Ravensbrook House farther down the river Severn.
Angelique bathed and dressed in a filmy night rail embroidered with delicate filigrees of silver thread. Lisette’s incomparable lace adorned the neck and shoulders of the gown but did not cover her deep décolletage. Angelique surveyed herself in the full-length mirror, taking in the sight of the curves barely hidden beneath her diaphanous gown.
She gave herself a practiced smile, tossing her midnight hair back over one shoulder. The curls fell almost to her waist in a silken mass as soft as the gown she wore. She laughed at herself. Beauty was as beauty did, her mother had said.
She looked around the bedroom she had so carefully decorated to suit her tastes, to be her refuge within her haven. Her beauty had helped smooth the way to obtaining the right contacts that she had used to make her fortune, but it was her mind that had built this place. Her mind had built her life from the ruins left by Geoffrey and Anthony in turn.
She drew her dressing gown of royal blue silk about her, belting it tightly so that not even a hint of flesh showed. She squared her shoulders, ready to face her newest adversary.
“Has he arrived?” Angelique asked.
Lisette made no pretense at ignorance. She knew of her mistress’s affairs and never breathed a word about any of them. Her French pragmatism colored her views on the bedchamber. The countess was a widow who answered to no one.
“Yes, madame. He waits for you in your sitting room downstairs.”
“The one adjacent to the flower garden?”
“Yes, madame. Shall I bring him up?”
Angelique smiled. “No, Lisette. I shall go to him.”
Lisette blinked. Even she was scandalized at the thought of her mistress stepping out of her bedroom suite in dishabille. For once, she held her tongue, simply stepping aside to let her mistress pass.
“You need not wait up for me, Lisette. My guest may stay with me overnight. I will see you in the morning.”
“Shall I wait for your call, madame?”
“Yes. I am not sure how late I may want to sleep.”
Lisette curtsied, and Angelique saw in the stiff lines of her maid’s thin back that she was displeased at the turn of events. But Angelique had lived too long on her own to worry what even her trusted people thought of her. So long as they held their tongues, their thoughts were their own.
Lisette retired to her own room and Angelique continued down the corridor. She moved down the carpeted stairs, the silk of her slippers barely making a sound as she walked. The door to the sitting room was open, a candelabrum set out on the table in the front hall. The house she had loved and worked so hard to reclaim was bathed in shadows. In the morning she would be able to see its beauty clearly, but tonight those walls were still her haven.
James Montgomery was waiting for her just as Lisette had said. He stood in the open French doors that led out into her flower garden. It was too early for the roses to bloom, but the night jasmine had come out with the moonlight, and even now the scent of it rode on the wind. Angelique savored it, and the sight of James Montgomery standing in her home. His broad shoulders filled the tight brown riding jacket he wore. He had changed his clothes before coming to see her, and his hair was neatly bound at the nape of his neck. The sight of that ribbon made her want to reach out and unravel it.
There was only one set of candles lit in the sitting room, casting shadows over his face. He turned at the sound of her slippers on the plush carpet. When he saw what she was wearing, his eyes widened, and he closed the door to the garden with an abrupt crash, as if there were villagers lurking among her flowers, good people who might be scandalized by her dishabille.
“Lady Devonshire, you are not dressed.”
In spite of his care with his accent, Aberdeen still rode his vowels when he was upset. His Scottish censure made her smile. She crossed to the sideboard where her favorite wine waited in its decanter. A sweet white wine from Burgundy, a little-known and little-drunk wine that she had discovered in the early days of her marriage and had loved ever since. Since the war had ended it was easier to obtain, but the tariffs were exorbitant. Everything worth having must be paid for.
She poured one glass of the Burgundy she loved, replacing the cut-glass decanter. She crossed the room to James Montgomery, where he still glowered beside the door to the garden. She took a sip of the wine before offering the cup to him. It was an old gesture that she had learned from Anthony, one she liked but had never used with any of her other lovers. It was an old gesture that meant, “Accept my hospitality. I mean you no harm.
Today, we lay down our weapons and drink from the cup of peace.”
James Montgomery stared at the goblet before he took it from her. He drank as she had, handing it back to her. She raised the glass and finished the wine, setting it empty on a nearby table. Only then did she speak.
“I wear what I please and I do as I please in my own house, Captain. If this does not meet with your approval, we can say good night.”
James’s skin darkened with ire as the blood rose in his face. For a moment, she thought that he truly would leave her, certain that he would stride past her, take to his horse, and disappear into the night, never to be seen again. She waited for this inevitability, almost expecting it. But as they stood together in silence, his color faded. His skin, tanned from the sun and wind, was no longer dark with anger. He breathed deeply, as if searching for calm, and she did the same.
“Forgive my bluntness, Captain, but I always begin as I mean to go on. I do not allow people to question my actions in my own house. If I came onboard your ship, you would not allow me to question you. Is that not correct?”
James frowned for a moment, not as if he were angry but as if he were thinking of what she said. “True enough. But this is not a ship. We are not at sea. I am a guest in your home. Rudeness is unacceptable.”
“True,” Angelique said. “Rudeness was not my intention, only that we be clear with one another. This home is my refuge. You are the first man I have ever allowed beyond its walls. But I do not accept the dictates of anyone here, neither man nor woman. I have made this one place on earth where I can be free of restraint, free to do as I please. I will not change that for anyone, not even for you.”
“You were free of restraint at Prinny’s card party,” James said.
Angelique sighed and stepped back, sitting in a delicate chair by the tilt-top tea table in the center of the room. James hesitated a moment before he sat across from her on the settee. This was the strangest negotiation she had ever undertaken with a lover. She wondered if she was a fool to try it. Most men simply would not accept her or any woman as an equal. Why should she expect this man to be any different?
“You were quite free of restraint as well, Captain, if I recall.”
James Montgomery smiled for the first time since she had entered the room, a rueful smile that seemed to take her in not just as a woman he wanted to bed, but as a person whose company he enjoyed. He leaned back, stretching his long legs before him as he had at the inn in the village. He surveyed her from head to toe, taking in the folds of her silk dressing gown and the soft fall of her hair.
“‘Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.’”
Angelique laughed, the sound rising between them like a bond, a sinuous connection that was as beautiful as it was fragile. “You quote Shakespeare to me, Captain? Not poetry? One would think you came not to woo but to conquer.”
“You are a woman to muddle a man’s mind. But you are a woman who can’t be conquered. If you were some lightskirt I met in a tavern, I wouldn’t be here.”
“I’m the woman you met on the deck of a ship you can’t have.”
James’s smile broadened, as did his accent. “That remains to be seen. Your Mr. Smythe seemed interested in opening a dialogue with me.”
“I’d like to do more than that with you,” she said.
His blue eyes were hot with desire, but this time he did not reach for her. He stayed where he was, his long legs stretched out in front of him, and let her look her fill.
Angelique leaned forward just enough to catch the scent of his skin. He too had bathed, for the dust of the road was gone from him. His clothes were well worn but serviceable.
He would never be known as a Corinthian, dressed as he was in clothes that would serve as well on a ship as they would on a hunt. His cravat was tied with flair, but she knew for a certainty that he did not keep a man, that he had tied it himself. Something about that simplicity refreshed her, the same way the Shropshire air did, bringing her back to herself in a way no other man ever had.
She dismissed that thought at once before she could examine it too closely.
Angelique thought of his huge calloused hands, his talented mouth, and of what they could do to her in the dark. She sighed as heat rose in her belly, spreading deliciously through her limbs. She felt languid with desire as she looked at him, but she forced herself to think. He was a beautiful man, there was no disputing that. But they needed to finish negotiating a truce before she let him touch her again.
Though her mind agreed to this, her traitorous body did not. Her lust for him continued to rise. Even the gleam of his well-buffed boots made her catch her breath.
“Let us be quite frank with one another, Captain. If we enter into an arrangement tonight, we must both concede that our time in Shropshire is a stolen season, one that we must leave behind without regret when it is over. You will return to the sea, I, to my life among the London ton. We must not pretend, either to ourselves or to each other, that there is anything more between us.”
James Montgomery met her eyes without flinching. “I concede nothing. I will not end this before it even begins.”
They stared at each other for a long moment, and her usually comfortable sitting room seemed suddenly tight and warm.
“The end of all things is inherent in their beginning,” she said. She fought her lust down even as she took in another breath of his clean skin.
“That may be, but this will not end tonight.”
Angelique could spend no more time stating the obvious. Whether he admitted it openly or not, their liaison would end, as all such liaisons did. It was inevitable, the way of the world. Happy endings resided only in fairy stories.
She rose to her feet with a languid grace that belied the need she felt simmering beneath her skin.
James stood when she did, his eyes on hers as if he could read her desire in their depths. He stepped around her tea table, and when she moved to meet him, he extended his hand to her as if she were a man, as any tradesman from the North might, offering to seal their alliance.
She took the hand he offered, thinking that he meant to shake her hand as he might a man’s in a matter of business. Instead, his great calloused fist closed over hers, engulfing her fingers in warmth. He drew her close, slowly, so that she had ample time to stop him or to pull away. When she did neither, he lifted her into his arms, one arm behind her knees, the other cradling her back.
“Where is your room?” he asked, striding for the door.
“On the second floor. The third door on the right.”
Nineteen
The infuriating woman laughed in his arms as James carried her up not one but two flights of stairs.
He knew that he was being ridiculous, or at the very least, ridiculously romantic, but after their long, almost one-sided conversation over how their relationship was going to develop, and for what short duration, he found that he had to assert himself as a man or leave his ballocks in a jar at her bedside.
Her laughter did little to help matters as he carried her to her bedroom. The halls of her house were dark. He had no free hand to lift a taper to light their way. His years onboard ship had made him sure-footed, so he did not lose a step as he carried her up into the shadows.
Angelique Beauchamp was the most maddening woman he had ever met. James could not remember ever wanting a woman the way he wanted her. He knew he was a fool. He had never gone so far from the sea and his chosen future in pursuit of a woman.
He might have blamed his madness on having been too long at sea fighting the French, but the war was long over and his fortune made in the West Indies a year ago. He had no excuse for his behavior, none that held water. All he knew was that the sapphire blue of her eyes turned from cold to hot on a whim, and he wanted to watch that change as she lay beneath him.
There was something in her that he wanted to possess, someth
ing beyond her beauty or her arrogance. He had known beautiful, arrogant women before, but none had held him as this one did, not even in his youth. There was something in Angelique Beauchamp that would not give him peace. Perhaps if he stayed by her side for a week or more, perhaps if he buried himself here in the country with her for days on end, and buried himself in her body over and over again during the course of those days, he might be able to free himself.
James set her on her feet within the confines of her bedroom suite and closed the door behind them. As he faced her once more in the firelight, he understood why she drew him to her. There was more behind her eyes than arrogance. A fascinating woman lived in the depths of that blue, a woman he hungered to know better.
She was still laughing as he set her down. “You are a man of many talents, Captain. The pointless, romantic gesture, I see, is one of them.”
He smiled ruefully, drawing the ribbon from his long auburn hair. “Enjoy your laughter, Angelique. You won’t be laughing long.”
She stopped laughing then and stepped toward him, placing one small hand over his heart. She did not lay her palm against his chest over his coat, but slid her hand beneath his waistcoat so that only the thin linen of his shirt was between them.
“Brave words, Captain. I hope you’ll make good on them.”
He drew her to him and kissed her, thinking to wipe the laughter and the mockery from her lips, to banish it from her eyes until she could think of nothing but him. Her lips yielded beneath his, opening to welcome his tongue as her body pressed against him as a sign of submission.
He knew that she had not truly surrendered. She did not give herself over to him, but simply sought her own pleasure, as if he were any other man she might have welcomed to her bed, as if he and all men were one and the same.
James moved his lips away from hers, trailing kisses over the curve of her throat where her head was thrown back in the beginnings of abandon. But he knew that Angelique never truly abandoned herself to him, or to anyone.
Much Ado About Jack Page 11